Early Stage Investor of the Year

Description

This award is for early stage investors, including impact investors, angel investors, and venture philanthropists. It seeks to reward those who are trailblazers in embedding social and environmental impacts into their investment decisions, in the way they manage their portfolios, and/or in the way they enable funding to flow from other investors to areas where capital is particularly needed for the shift to a sustainable economy.  Examples might include early stage investors who are supporting new technologies, reaching countries which have scarce capital, or extending capital to small and medium-sized enterprises to enable them to grow.  Alternatively, the early stage investor might have developed a risk-sharing structure that catalyses additional funding from others; or might have provided technical support alongside its investment.

Judges do not expect perfection in all aspects of an early stage investor’s activities: they know that embedding sustainability into all investment decisions is a challenging process! But they will be looking for examples of outstanding performance as a leader in sustainable finance and impact, and of clear integration of sustainability and impact goals with the early stage investor’s core business.

They will expect to see measurable outcomes and impacts, as well as clear commitments to future progress. Specifically, they will be looking for real leadership in the selection and engagement of portfolio companies, and in monitoring and reporting, as reflected in the criteria below.

Criteria

Selection and engagement (30%): How the early stage investor selects companies for investment, on the basis of the contribution that they can make to a sustainable economy. 

Structuring for risk management and scale (30%): How the early stage investor structures a transaction – or a portfolio - to enable investment in activities that are not yet proven in the market but have the potential for outsized impact.  The judges will be particularly interested in innovative approaches to share risk with other investors to scale up the investment. 

Monitoring and measurement (20%): How the early stage investor has put systems in place to track the impact performance of its investments.  The judges will be particularly interested in approaches to measurement of impact that enable follow-on investors to understand the social and environmental performance of the investment alongside financial performance.

Integration (20%): How the early stage investor has demonstrably integrated all its work on impact and high ESG standards with its overall approach to investment. To what extent is it demonstrating a commitment to improved social and environmental outcomes through all aspects of its investment strategy?

Any confidential data will be treated as such and only shared with the judging panel, all of whom will have signed NDAs.